Accrue targets African businesses with stablecoin-powered cross-border banking platform
Accrue, an agent-led stablecoin fintech that operates in several African markets, has launched a banking platform for small and medium-sized businesses, in a move to capture rising demand for faster, cheaper cross-border business payments. Accrue Business allows businesses to hold, send, and receive stablecoins, collect international payments, and pay suppliers across borders using the same infrastructure that powers Cashramp, the company’s consumer remittance product. Businesses can create a stablecoin wallet, virtual US dollar and euro accounts, invoicing tools, virtual cards, and stablecoin-based payroll, allowing them to receive international payments, pay suppliers across Africa, Europe, and the United States, manage employee spending, and pay staff directly into on-chain wallets from a single platform, according to Clinton Mbah, co-founder and chief executive officer of Accrue. “We have seen a lot of success with individuals who haven’t had a reliable, affordable, and fast mobile money way for them to send money across Africa,” Mbah told TechCabal. “Businesses started asking for the same thing.” The launch comes as more African fintechs adopt stablecoin rails to solve cross-border payment bottlenecks for businesses. Africa’s cross-border payments market processed about $329 billion in 2025 and could grow to reach $1 trillion by 2035, according to a report by venture capital firm Oui Capital. As the market expands, fintechs such as Accrue are positioning stablecoins to route a significant chunk of those transaction flows. The startup joins other fintechs such as Grey, Flutterwave, and Raenest, which offer stablecoin-powered payment products that enable businesses to collect international payments, hold dollar balances, and pay suppliers across multiple markets, reflecting a broader shift in how fintechs are approaching cross-border commerce. However, Mbah said Accrue is taking a different approach. It is building on an agent network that already moves money across 15 African countries, using stablecoins as the settlement infrastructure, while local agents provide liquidity on both sides of a transaction. “If I’m in Ghana and want to send money to Nigeria, I’m matched with a Ghanaian agent who converts my Cedis into stablecoins,” Mbah said. “When I send the payment, another agent in Nigeria settles Naira to the recipient in exchange for those stablecoins.” Accrue does not provide the counterparty liquidity itself; its agents directly do, bypassing traditional payment intermediaries and banking partners. That model allows the startup to charge businesses about 1% for transactions, while US dollar payments incur about 0.5% or higher, depending on customer volume, according to Mbah. He noted that the startup retains about 85% of the processed margins, while the remaining 15% goes to the peer-to-peer (P2P) agents processing the transactions. Mbah added that removing banks and payment processors from the transaction enables Accrue to cap Cashramp fees at $2 regardless of transaction size. To reduce counterparty risk, the fintech manages a closed network of vetted agents with established track records on its platform. It matches each payment request to an approved agent, who supplies the liquidity needed to settle the transaction, according to Mbah. He said agents continue receiving transaction flows only if they maintain a strong settlement record. Much of that network grows through referrals rather than formal recruitment. Mbah said Accrue’s agents—typically people aged between 18 and 30 without formal employment—earn upwards of $150 monthly, depending on how much starting liquidity they bring to the platform. Existing agents, many of whom have built long transaction histories on the platform, frequently recruit family members and friends into the network. Mbah said those referrals make it easier for Accrue to vet new agents as it expands into new markets while keeping customer acquisition costs low. “They [agents] have no incentive to be bad actors because for them this is a serious livelihood,” Mbah said. “They know that if they continue processing transactions successfully, they continue getting orders, and continued orders mean they earn more.” Accrue also extends stablecoin credit lines to agents with a strong track record, allowing them to process larger transactions without holding the full liquidity upfront, Mbah said. “We look at agents who have been on the platform for a long time, completed thousands of transactions, and processed several hundred thousand dollars in volume,” Mbah said. “We collect data on their activity and utilisation, and that determines how much credit we extend to them.” The credit is repaid automatically as those agents process new customer transactions, he added. The model has fuelled the startup’s growth. Cashramp’s transaction volume nearly quadrupled between 2023 and 2024 before doubling again between 2024 and 2025, according to Mbah. While he declined to disclose exact payment volume, he noted that Accrue has processed between $70 million and $100 million in total transaction volume across its platform since launch, including stablecoin on-chain deposits, withdrawals, and foreign currency inflows and outflows. Cashramp accounts for between $30 million and $50 million of that volume. The startup is now extending that infrastructure to businesses. Accrue Business currently processes between $600,000 and $700,000 in monthly transaction volume across customers using its application programming interface (API), web platform, and recently launched mobile app, according to Mbah. The web platform has been live for about two months, while the API has supported business customers since 2024. The startup targets sole proprietors and small businesses that move money across borders regularly and remain underserved by larger financial institutions. Mbah said transactions currently top out between $150,000 and $250,000, a ceiling that reflects the businesses Accrue serves today. “We have merchants who serve customers across multiple African markets, and our ever-expanding Cashramp Agent Network perfectly caters to this challenge by providing agents on the ground who supply local currency liquidity,” Nureni Imam, Accrue’s head of business, told TechCabal. “Some of our merchants previously used traditional payment partners, but were limited by the number of supported currencies and the associated fees.” Accrue’s expansion strategy follows the same playbook that built its consumer business. The startup now has agents across more than 15 African countries, up from about seven before raising a $1.58 million seed round in January 2025. Mbah said Accrue’s deepest liquidity pools are
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This Nigerian microfinance bank’s slow-lending strategy is delivering fast results
Speed is a competitive advantage in Nigeria’s $2.1 billion digital lending market. Fintech lenders promise approvals in minutes, using automation to move borrowers from application to disbursement with as little friction as possible. However, Nombank, the microfinance banking subsidiary of Nigerian fintech Nomba, has taken a different approach after securing its licence in December 2024. Rather than approving loans within minutes, the lender said it deliberately takes between 24 and 48 hours to make a credit decision. Payment data powers much of its underwriting, but account officers still verify merchants before any loans are approved, sometimes through physical visits. That slower process, the bank says, has helped it keep its non-performing loan ratio below 1%, well below the banking industry’s average of 8%. “We want to give loans that will truly come back,” Seun Osunkeye, Nombank’s managing director, told TechCabal in an interview. “Most importantly, we are interested in businesses growing, merchants growing, and everyone being happy.” In April, Nomba and Globus Bank announced that their 18-month lending partnership had disbursed ₦21.3 billion ($15.45 million) to Nigerian businesses while keeping non-performing loans below 1%. Non-performing loans are loans that borrowers have stopped repaying, making them a key measure of a lender’s credit quality. A ratio below 1% means fewer than one in every 100 loans on Nomba’s books has fallen into default, suggesting the bank has kept bad debts unusually low even as it expanded lending. This is well below industry standards, where eight in every 100 loans fall into default. In its January economic report, the Central Bank of Nigeria noted that the industry’s non-performing loan ratio rose to 8.03% in January 2026, above the prudential threshold of 5%. Lending against cash flow Nombank’s lending model begins long before a customer applies for credit. Because it lends exclusively to merchants already using Nomba’s payment infrastructure, the bank has months of transaction data before it makes a lending decision. Osunkeye said merchants are typically expected to have processed payments on the platform for at least three months, allowing Nombank to observe how money flows through the business before extending credit. The bank notes that it analyses daily, weekly, and monthly transaction patterns flowing through merchants’ accounts, studying how consistently businesses generate revenue, whether sales fluctuate seasonally, and how stable their cash flow has been over time. Those patterns determine not only whether a merchant qualifies for credit but also how much the bank will be willing to lend. Osunkeye explained that the facilities are generally capped at about 20% of a merchant’s monthly inflows, and most are structured as seven-day, two-week, or one-month working capital loans designed to help businesses replenish inventory or meet short-term operating needs. Most of the loans disbursed go to retailers. “It is mostly in the retail segments. That is where we see this kind of need. If you are looking at the big guys, like big sectors, those are probably looking for expansion, but these other people, they just need to get one or two things quickly,” Osunkeye said. The bank currently lends between ₦50,000 ($36.26) and ₦1.5 million ($1,087.69) per customer, with an upper lending limit of ₦2 million ($1,450.25). Is your business eligible? Adjust your average monthly payment inflows to see your estimated working capital loan limit. Average Monthly Inflow ₦ Estimated Loan Limit ₦ 200,000 *Capped at Nombank’s maximum limit of ₦2,000,000. System Insight: Nombank strictly caps lending facilities at about 20% of a merchant’s monthly inflows. By enforcing this cap and utilizing account officers for 24- to 48-hour physical verifications, they have maintained a non-performing loan ratio of below 1%—substantially lower than the 8.03% banking industry average. Source: TC reporting, CBN Nombank’s strategy relies heavily on Nomba’s broader business model. As more merchants process payments through its terminals, the company gathers richer transaction histories, making it easier to assess risk and extend credit. Daily payment volume across Nomba’s platform has grown from about ₦7 billion ($5.08 million) in May 2025 to roughly ₦250 billion ($181.28 million) by May 2026, according to company figures shared with TechCabal. Why Nombank still knocks on doors Despite relying heavily on payment data, Nombank has taken a hybrid approach to its lending process, combining automation with human assessment. Before many loans are approved, account officers confirm that merchants are still operating, maintain regular contact with customers, and, where necessary, visit businesses physically before disbursement, according to Osunkeye. The MFB previously experimented with near-instant lending but concluded that transaction data alone was insufficient to assess repayment risk. “We tried ensuring customers could get loans in minutes,” Osunkeye said. “But you might assume you still have a relationship with a merchant even though the account officer hasn’t visited that business for a long time.” For Nombank, payment data identifies potential borrowers. Character profiling helps with the final lending decision. “So, for us, we prioritise 24 to 48 hours,” he said. “The account officer checks the merchant before we disburse the loan. Everyone is selling automated, quick loans, but that relationship is very important. Character is very important.” The process is slower than that of many fintech lenders, but Nombank believes the additional checks improve repayment rates and reduce credit losses. According to Gbemi Adelekan, president of the Money Lenders Association, digital lenders face severe structural and operational risks. “Such risk, including the exceptionally high non-performing loans, coupled with the high cost of technology in providing loans in minutes, allows money lenders to charge a little premium on their interest rates,” he told TechCabal. Scaling without losing discipline Nombank currently operates under a tier-1 microfinance banking licence, according to Osunkeye, limiting its operations largely to urban markets, and it must have a minimum capital requirement of ₦200 million ($145,025). The MFB is currently operating within the Ifo local government of Ogun State, a state that borders Lagos in southwestern Nigeria. The bank says it has disbursed about ₦500 million ($362,563) in loans so far this year after lending roughly ₦100 million ($72,512) throughout last year. It expects to
Read MoreAs algorithms shape financial inclusion, accountability must keep pace
While public attention remains fixed on artificial intelligence (AI) tools that write, generate, and automate tasks, a more consequential transformation is quietly unfolding across Nigeria’s digital economy: algorithms are beginning to make decisions that affect people’s financial lives. AI is increasingly being used to make decisions rather than merely assist humans. In Nigeria’s fast-growing fintech sector, algorithms are beginning to influence who gets access to credit, how customers are assessed, how fraud is detected, and how complaints are resolved. As these systems become more sophisticated, a critical question emerges: who is accountable when an algorithm makes the wrong decision? This question is particularly important in Nigeria because financial services are becoming increasingly digital. According to EFInA’s 2023 Access to Financial Services Survey, formal financial inclusion in Nigeria rose to 64% in 2023, up from 54% in 2020, while overall financial inclusion reached 74%. More Nigerians now access financial services through digital channels, meaning decisions once made by human loan officers are increasingly being delegated to automated systems. AI-powered systems process applications faster, reduce operational costs, detect fraud more effectively, and expand access to financial services. For a country still working to deepen financial inclusion, these innovations offer enormous potential. However, efficiency is not the same as accountability. Unlike traditional credit decisions, where a loan officer can explain the factors that informed an outcome, AI-driven decisions are often based on proprietary models controlled entirely by the financial institution. Customers typically have no visibility into the metrics being used to assess them, no meaningful opportunity to challenge those metrics, and little understanding of how a decision was reached. This creates a significant information imbalance between service providers and consumers, undermining fundamental consumer protection principles such as transparency, fairness, and the right to seek redress. Consider a digital lending platform that uses artificial intelligence to determine creditworthiness. An applicant is denied a loan despite having a stable source of income and a history of responsible financial behavior. When the customer seeks an explanation, the company may be unable or unwilling to provide one beyond a generic statement that the application did not meet the platform’s risk criteria. Yet the algorithm, the variables it relies on, and the weight assigned to those variables remain entirely within the control of the institution. From the consumer’s perspective, this is more than a technology problem. It is an accountability problem. Who bears responsibility in such a scenario? The company may argue that the system operates automatically. The software developer may insist that it merely provided the technology. The data provider may claim responsibility ends with supplying information. Yet from the consumer’s perspective, someone must be accountable. What makes the Nigerian situation particularly significant is the speed at which technology adoption often outpaces regulation. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Fintech Report, close to 11 billion transactions were processed through the NIBSS Instant Payment platform in 2024, more than double the approximately five billion recorded in 2022. The report also notes that AI is already being deployed across the fintech ecosystem. Nigeria’s Data Protection Act already provides an important foundation for addressing some of these concerns. Because AI systems rely heavily on personal and behavioral data, organisations must comply with obligations relating to lawful processing, transparency, and accountability. However, data protection alone cannot answer the broader governance question. That scale makes AI accountability a practical concern, not a theoretical one. A flawed employee may affect dozens of customers; a flawed algorithm can affect hundreds of thousands. The real challenge is ensuring that organisations remain responsible for decisions made through automated systems. As businesses adopt advanced AI tools, there may be a temptation to treat algorithmic outcomes as neutral or objective. That would be a mistake. AI systems are designed, trained, deployed, and monitored by human organisations. Responsibility cannot disappear simply because technology is involved. Nigeria has an opportunity to act before a crisis forces action. Rather than waiting for widespread disputes over automated decisions, policymakers now develop a clear framework for AI accountability in sectors where algorithms affect people’s access to services, opportunities, and financial resources. The principle should be straightforward: automation should never eliminate accountability. Companies should remain responsible for decisions made through systems they deploy. Consumers should have access to meaningful explanations where automated decisions significantly affect them. Regulators should be able to identify who bears responsibility when harm occurs. This does not require an immediate, sweeping AI law. It requires clear rules that preserve innovation while ensuring that businesses cannot hide behind algorithms when things go wrong. The goal should be responsible deployment, not regulatory paralysis. Nigeria has often had to regulate emerging technologies after problems have become widespread. AI offers a rare opportunity to take a more proactive approach. ___ Omoruyi “Uyilaw” Edoigiawerie is a startup lawyer, policy advisor, and Founder of EandC Legal. He advises startups, investors, and institutions on technology, innovation, and regulatory strategy. His work focuses on technology governance, digital transformation, financial inclusion, and emerging technologies, with a particular interest in the policies shaping Africa’s digital and economic future.
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Freddie Omany: The French teacher who ended up moving millions of payments
“Be anything.” It sounds like the sort of advice printed on a graduation card. Freddie Omany’s older brother meant it literally. Long before he found himself helping move millions of mobile money transactions across Africa every day, Omany, PawaPay Kenya country director, taught French. He translated documents. He worked in government communications. He chased unpaid invoices for Booking.com, a digital travel platform, across Francophone Africa. None of those jobs looked remotely connected at the time. Looking back, he insists they were all preparing him for the same thing. We meet on the sidelines of Road to Moonshot in Nairobi, where PawaPay is one of the event partners. He is difficult to categorise. Payments executives usually talk in numbers: uptime, transaction values, fraud rates, APIs. Omany reaches instead for stories. Ask about financial inclusion, and he talks about a Bolt driver waiting to pay school fees. Ask about reliability, and he remembers a GiveDirectly—a non-profit that helps donors send money—recipient whose cash transfer could not afford to fail. Ask about leadership, and he quotes a mentor and not a management book. The longer we talk, the clearer it becomes that he does not think of payments as moving money. He thinks of them as moving trust. That may explain why the most interesting thing about Omany is not that he helps oversee one of Africa’s busiest payment networks. It’s that, after all these years and all these careers, he still approaches business like the curious boy from Molo, a small agricultural town 250km west of Nairobi, who kept asking why. Our conversation wanders far beyond payments. We talk about growing up in Molo, teaching French, why Africa’s payments revolution is still unfinished, and why he believes the best infrastructure is the kind nobody notices. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Let’s begin before fintech. What sort of child were you? What fascinated you growing up, and what kind of family shaped you? Molo. That’s where it starts. A small farming town in the Rift Valley, a couple of hundred kilometres from Nairobi, and famously cold. People don’t always believe me when I tell them there are places in Kenya where you can see your breath in July. It was quiet, and Nairobi felt very far away. My family was a normal Kenyan family, and I mean that in the best sense. Nothing dramatic, nothing that would make a good founder origin story. What they gave me was room to be curious. I was the child who asked why about everything and took things apart to see how they worked, usually without permission and often without successfully putting them back together. That instinct never left. Everything I’ve done since, and I’ve done a lot of different things, comes back to the same reflex: here is a problem, let’s figure it out. Was there a moment when you realised business, or solving commercial problems, was more exciting than following a conventional career? It crept up on me rather than arriving as one big moment. Believe it or not, I’ve been a teacher. I taught French and worked as a translator. I’ve done communications for a government fund. Then I spent time at Booking.com managing finance across Francophone Africa, calling hotel owners from Dakar to Antananarivo about unpaid invoices. Somewhere in those calls, I noticed I wasn’t tired at the end of the day. Every invoice was a puzzle. Sometimes it was a cash-flow problem, sometimes a currency problem, sometimes purely a trust problem. Untangling it felt a lot like teaching, actually. You meet people where they are and move them somewhere better. Once I saw that, the idea of a conventional career stopped being interesting. I never really followed conventional career advice anyway. What advice did you ignore when you were younger, and would you make the same decision today? The advice is to pick one lane and stay in it. Everyone tells you to specialise early. I ignored that completely, and my brother deserves the credit. He told me to be a master in B.A. Not Business Administration. Be Anything. So I have been a teacher, a communications person, a finance manager, a customer success lead, a strategic operations manager, a partnerships manager, and now a country director running Kenya and South Sudan for PawaPay. Every one of those looked like a detour at the time and turned out to be preparation. Would I make the same decision today? Faster. Looking back, which failure taught you more than any promotion ever did? There was a time we spotted a problem on a partner’s network before their own team did. Our monitoring picked up a pattern that usually comes before a bigger degradation, so we made the call, rerouted traffic, and flagged it to them. Technically, we were completely right. Two hours later, it played out exactly as predicted. But the way we delivered it made the partner feel accused rather than supported. The awkwardness of that conversation took longer to repair than the incident itself. Being right was not enough. That failure crystallised something I now hold as a rule: people care about how you made them feel more than almost anything else, even in business. A merchant remembers the support team that solved their issue in record time. A partner remembers that you reached out when their CEO was unwell. Nobody frames the invoice. We are in the business of being human. No promotion teaches you that. Failure does. Omany presents during the Road to Moonshot event in Nairobi on July 2. Image source: TechCabal You’ve worked through different phases of Africa’s payments evolution. What has surprised you most about how money actually moves across the continent? Not what reports say, but what you’ve personally witnessed. How impatient this continent is, in the best possible way. Africans love speed. Fast payments, reliable payments. A trader in Kinshasa and a farmer in Addis Ababa have the same expectation: money should move now, and it should arrive complete. That
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South Africa-founded startup launches AI model with 10 million-token memory
Refiant AI, a South Africa-founded startup that uses algorithms to compress artificial intelligence (AI) models, has launched Protea, a suite of large language models (LLMs) that the company says is capable of processing up to 10 million tokens in a single prompt. The models can process and retain significantly more information at once before generating a response, according to the company. Protea comes in three versions with context windows of one million, five million, and 10 million tokens and can be accessed for free through Refiant’s platform without a waitlist or approval process. The launch comes three months after Refiant AI raised a $5 million seed round led by VoLo Earth Ventures to expand its AI optimisation platform and deepen research partnerships. Protea marks Refiant’s first major product launch since its fundraising. “Customers don’t need more waitlists,” Mathew Haswell, Defiant AI’s cofounder, said. “They need models they can test, break, and build with. Protea is live, and we want people to use it from day one.” Founded in 2025 by Haswell, Viroshan Naicker, and Siddharth Gutta, Refiant AI is building machine learning systems to reduce compute costs and improve AI model efficiency. According to the company, at its maximum capacity, Protea can hold roughly 7.5 million words, allowing users to analyse large volumes of information without splitting it into smaller chunks. It added that such a level of context could allow legal teams to review hundreds of contracts in a single pass, insurers to analyse years of claims data, and engineering teams to process entire software codebases. The launch comes as AI companies increasingly compete to expand the amount of information their models can process at once. Anthropic’s Claude supports context windows of up to 500,000 tokens on certain Enterprise offerings, while Google’s Gemini offers up to one million tokens on its higher-tier plans. As AI developers move to improve performance by expanding context windows, Refiant is betting that a larger AI memory will give enterprises an edge when analysing large datasets. “Long-context AI has been talked about for over a year now, but hasn’t really been commercially available,” said Naicker, CEO and co-founder of Refiant. The company said it has already demonstrated an internal prototype capable of processing up to 100 million tokens and is exploring how to benchmark and bring the technology into production. It added that Protea is the first of three planned product releases. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
Read MoreWhy Nigeria’s telemedicine sector is growing again
When we put together the first State of Health Tech report in 2018, one sector led overwhelmingly. Startups trying to help patients connect with doctors virtually had the highest number. The reason was simple; there was a low barrier to entry, and many of the founders were doctors themselves. It was a convenient choice. You simply layered a video conferencing tool, or if you could afford it, a chatbot on top of a service you already offered. It also seemed sexy. You got to brag that you are now a health tech entrepreneur. Quite frankly, there was also a glaring gap they were trying to fill. As of 2018, Nigeria had 3.8 doctors per 10,000 people, according to TechCabal Insights’ State of Healthtech in Nigeria 2026 report. Compare this to India, which has about 7.3 doctors per 10,000 people. But telemedicine had a problem. Funding was falling behind. Users were not forthcoming despite the convenience these solutions promised. Consequently, investors couldn’t be convinced. Many of these startups shut down. Almost one in two of startup closures tracked between 2017 and 2021 by TechCabal Insights in the 2026 State of Health Tech Report were in the sector. In our 2018 report, the sector raised less than 5% of total funding across 23 startups. While there was a gap, it was misunderstood. For one, how Nigerians access healthcare is different from the West, where telemedicine was invented. A combination of factors, including low health insurance penetration, relatively low broadband coverage, and cultural norms, means that patients have to make certain tradeoffs. The stars align In the 2026 edition of our healthtech report, not much has changed—on the surface. Telemedicine (now known as Telehealth) continues to lead in terms of startup activity. About 35% of startups in the sector are in telemedicine. It also continues to trail in terms of funding, ranking 6th out of 9 sub-sectors. However, there’s a quiet shift happening. Between 2019 and 2026, telehealth startups raised $21.79 million, averaging $3.11 million per year. This is more than 10 times the average amount raised annually between 2014 and 2018. The funding raised was spread across 38 startups in the sub-sector. Telemedicine appears to be attracting more investor interest. But what has changed between 2018 and 2026? First, user habits are changing significantly. Users of all ages are increasingly getting used to ordering food, rides, and clothes via their mobile apps. As AI chatbots became ubiquitous and many more people got access, patients are coming into doctors’ appointments with research in hand. These have contributed to users being comfortable using telemedicine platforms. It’s eroded some of the distrust that existed years ago. Ikpeme Neto, CEO/Founder at Wella Health and health tech leader, believes that payment startups such as Moneipoint, OPay and PalmPay have played a significant role in shaping digital behaviour and building trust in app-based services. “Fintech normalised the idea that a phone could be the interface for serious services. Telemedicine is now benefiting from that behavioural infrastructure,” he said. Patients are beginning to consider telemedicine platforms a must-have. Evelyn*, a user I spoke with, explained that their telemedicine app is the first place they and their friends go when they fall ill. One study showed willingness to use telemedicine being as high as 96.2%. Since the users consider them necessary, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) are paying attention. A 2025 report by the Rome Business Schools says that over 60% of healthcare providers now integrate telemedicine. Neto tells me about the CEO of an HMO who reported growth in their telemedicine offering and was excited about prospects. HMOs are now more willing to include telemedicine as part of their offerings, either by paying, reimbursing, or operating it. “HMOs are beginning to see it as a cost-saving tool,” he said. “A good telemedicine service can reduce unnecessary visits to physical facilities.” Scaling telemedicine Despite the shift the industry is experiencing, the sector has yet to produce a clear winner – a telemedicine startup built at scale. Can telemedicine leverage the ubiquitous technology and user education to build sustainable businesses? Potentially. Armed with a clear understanding of the cultural nuances and an honest sense of the market size, the path to sustainability becomes clearer. A clear lesson from one of the industry pioneers was leveraging telemedicine as an entry point and not the end game. Nigerian startup Reliance Health started as a telemedicine startup and quickly pivoted to provide health insurance and physical clinics. The lesson still rings true today. According to Neto, “telemedicine’s broader potential lies in becoming the front door to everyday healthcare for millions of people who are not currently well served by the traditional system.” Telemedicine in Nigeria is having its moment. It’s gradually transforming into a clear VC-backable commercial opportunity. Its future, however, relies on its ability to mint a winner, a clear marker of its maturity. *The user’s real name has been withheld.
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JéGO, GoCab strike deal to put 6,000 EVs on West African roads
JéGO, a US-incorporated electric-vehicle company building for African roads, has signed a commercial agreement with GoCab, the drive-to-own mobility startup, to deploy 6,000 electric vehicles across four African markets over the next 24 months, the companies said. The first 600 vehicles, meant for commercial use on ride-hailing apps like Uber, Bolt and inDrive, will roll out in the coming months across Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, according to JéGO. The deal comes as Africa’s EV market grows but remains limited by two problems: financing and charging. Much of the region’s electrification so far has centred on two- and three-wheelers. JéGO is aiming at commercial four-wheelers, a segment that needs heavier charging and financing support. Charging also depends on a power supply that, in Nigeria especially, often runs on diesel and petrol generators, which complicates the clean-energy case. “We didn’t start JéGO to just sell EVs,” said Frederick Akpoghene, CEO & Founder, JéGO. “We built it to give a continent the freedom to move on its own terms, powered by its own sun, run on its own intelligence. Africa doesn’t need to catch up to the future of mobility. Africa is where it gets built.” The deal is a bet on a market that is expanding quickly. Africa’s shift to electric transport has so far run mostly on two wheels. Electric motorcycle sales across the continent rose from fewer than 1,000 units in 2020 to about 70,000 in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook 2026, pushed by high fuel costs and the spread of battery-swapping networks. Investors have taken notice of the growth in Africa’s electric vehicle industry, and the clearest sign of their appetite is Spiro, Africa’s largest electric-mobility company. The Dubai-based firm, founded in 2022, has raised one of the largest funding totals in African e-mobility, including $215 million announced on June 1 and a further $55 million from China’s NewTrails Capital weeks later. Passenger and commercial four-wheelers, the segment JéGO and GoCab are chasing, sit further back. They need pricier vehicles, heavier charging and larger financing tickets, which is why most of the continent’s EV activity has stayed on bikes and three-wheelers. At the centre of the startup’s pitch is JéGO X, an AI fleet-management system the company says handles telematics, predictive maintenance and driver-earnings tracking. Under the deal, JéGO leases vehicles and charging infrastructure to fleet operators such as GoCab, which then offers drivers a path to ownership through daily payments. JéGO said the arrangement removes the biggest barrier to fleet electrification, which is the upfront cost, and lets operators scale without loading the full capital cost onto their balance sheets. “The next African startup to impact the world will come from an African village,” said Oswald Osaretin Guobadia, a director at JéGO. “[Our] mission is sustainable transport and renewable energy for cities and rural communities alike.” GoCab, founded in London in 2024, raised $45 million in February this year and already runs drive-to-own operations in all four markets named in the deal. It reported $17 million in annual recurring revenue after 18 months of operation. Electric vehicles made up about 10% of its fleet at the time of the raise, with a target of 50% by the end of 2026. This partnership is one of the ways GoCab plans to hit that target. JéGO’s own track record is shorter. Founded by Nigerian-born engineer Frederick Akpoghene, the company began around 2020 in Miami, US, building autonomous pods for healthcare and delivery, then shifted focus to African EVs. It unveiled a car it calls the Zero Carbon at the University of Lagos, one of Nigeria’s largest public universities, in November 2025 and is now raising a Series A. It says it is already an Uber fleet partner, with vehicles averaging more than 60 trips a week. Neither company disclosed the value of the agreement or how the 6,000-vehicle target will be financed. JéGO said it has a pipeline of prospects across Africa, Latin America, the US, the UK and India. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks.Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Why a South African fintech chose the UK before the rest of Africa
Float, a South African payments startup, is taking a card-linked instalment product developed at home to one of the world’s most sophisticated fintech markets, with the belief that innovation built for Africa can compete globally. The Johannesburg-founded payments company, which enables shoppers to split purchases made on existing credit cards into interest-free instalments, has expanded into the United Kingdom (UK). Rather than viewing Britain as a market to learn from, Float believes the constraints of building in South Africa have given it a competitive advantage in one of the world’s most sophisticated fintech ecosystems. The move reflects a broader shift in African fintech, in which homegrown payment infrastructure and business models are being exported to developed markets rather than simply imported from them. “We think it’s a broader story than just Float,” founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Alex Forsyth-Thompson told TechCabal in an interview. “South Africa has built genuinely world-class payments and fintech capabilities. On a relative basis, South Africa is as, if not more, competitive than the UK.” Founded in 2021, Float is a card-linked instalment platform that allows consumers to convert purchases made with their existing Visa or Mastercard credit cards into interest- and fee-free monthly instalments of up to 24 months. Unlike traditional buy now, pay later (BNPL) providers, Float does not issue new credit or require customers to apply for another loan. Instead, it works within the customer’s existing credit card facility, with merchants paying Float a fee for the service. The company says it has signed more than 2,200 merchants in South Africa, including Samsung, iStore, The North Face, Cycle Lab and Tiger Wheel & Tyre. According to Forsyth-Thompson, Float has also raised more than R280 million ($17.1 million) in equity and debt funding from investors including Standard Bank, Invenfin, Platform Investment Partners and Saad Investment Holdings. He said the company’s expansion into Britain is supported by the UK Government’s Global Entrepreneur Programme, an initiative designed to attract high-growth international companies to the country. Float’s choice of Britain over another African market may appear surprising at a time when many fintechs are chasing continental expansion. Fintechs such as Moniepoint, Mukuru, and Yellow Card have steadily grown their footprints across Africa. That regional strategy has become the default playbook for many startups seeking scale, making Float’s decision to enter the UK before pursuing broader African expansion a notable departure from the norm. But Forsyth-Thompson argues that the company’s technology depends on markets with mature credit card ecosystems. “The UK has over 55 million credit cards in circulation, with over £70 billion ($93.8 million) in credit card balances that are incurring interest,” he said. “At the same time, there is roughly £250 billion ($335 million) sitting unused on these cards. These shoppers don’t need more credit; they need more time.” Rather than competing directly with BNPL providers such as Klarna and Clearpay, Float believes it serves a different segment of the market. “Similar to African BNPL players, Klarna and Clearpay focus on issuing new loans to shoppers at checkout,” Forsyth-Thompson said. “We are serving people who already have a credit card with room on it, don’t want new loans, and don’t want another sign-up process and app download standing between them and checkout.” The distinction also shapes Float’s regulatory positioning. As a company that operates on top of existing bank-issued credit facilities rather than extending new loans, it leverages credit assessments already completed by banks while allowing consumers to spread repayments over a longer period. Building the technology for multiple markets presented its own challenges. While the platform already runs on global card networks, Float had to redesign its infrastructure to support multiple territories and payment processing environments. “Our technology platform required significant build to enable us to run a multi-territory architecture and cater for processing payments in different markets,” Forsyth-Thompson said. “Now that this build is complete, we are able to expand markets and product sets with more speed.” Perhaps the biggest lesson from Float’s expansion is that Africa’s difficult operating environment can become an advantage rather than a handicap. South Africa’s fintech market is crowded with banks, payment providers, and alternative payment methods competing for merchants, forcing startups to become efficient long before they consider international growth. “Because we have such strong proof points with global brands in South Africa, as well as some great operational experience, merchant take-up in the UK has moved faster than in our early days in South Africa,” Forsyth-Thompson said. “Having built here in a more cost-conscious and capital-constrained environment turned out to be very good preparation for a mature, competitive market like the UK.” True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks.Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Google Pixel 11 release date and everything you should know
Google has locked in a date for its next Pixel launch. The Made by Google 2026 event will take place on August 12, 2026, and will bring the Pixel 11 series into the spotlight. Here is everything confirmed so far, so you know what to expect before the big reveal. At a glance Event: Made by Google 2026 Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2026 Time: 6 PM ET (11 PM WAT) Location: New York City Expected devices: Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, Pixel 11 Pro Fold, and Pixel Watch 5 Storage: the 128GB tier is reportedly dropped, with 256GB as the new base Price: increases are expected across most models Chip: Tensor G6, built on a 2nm process Google confirms Pixel 11 release date and event details Google sent out official press invites on July 7, 2026, confirming the date, time, and location of its next hardware event. This is the confirmed part of the story. The invite mentions “the next generation of Pixel” and shows a gold metal frame with a horizontal camera bar, but it does not name any device directly. Google has not published an official event page yet, nor is there a blog post, social media teaser, or livestream link. The confirmation so far comes only from the press invite, which outlets like 9to5Google and The Verge received directly. How does this year compare to last year? Pixel 10 launched on August 20, 2025, and Pixel 9 launched on August 13, 2024. This year’s Pixel 11 arrives on August 12, 2026, eight days earlier than last year’s event. The event also starts later than usual. Instead of Google’s typical early afternoon keynote, this year’s show starts at 6 PM ET, moving into the evening hours. Analysts believe this earlier date and later time give Android buyers a longer window to decide before Apple’s expected September announcement. How to watch Google usually streams its Made by Google events through its official website, the Google Store, and YouTube. Google has not shared a direct stream link yet, so keep watching those channels as August 12 gets closer. Expected lineup Google is expected to unveil four phones alongside a new smartwatch. Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro Pixel 11 Pro XL and Pixel 11 Pro Fold Pixel Watch 5, expected in two sizes New Pixel Buds Pro, though no details have leaked yet The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is expected to arrive later than the rest of the lineup, likely around October 2026. This matches how Google released the Pixel 10 Pro Fold last year, so foldable fans should plan for a longer wait. The Pixel Watch 5 is rumoured to come in 41mm and 45mm sizes, each with Wi-Fi and LTE options. Leaks point to a design close to the Pixel Watch 4, with the same health sensors carried over. Pricing leaks suggest a $50 increase across the board, with prices ranging from $399 to $529 depending on size and connectivity. Price and storage One of the biggest changes rumoured for this year is the removal of the 128GB storage option. If this leak holds up, every Pixel 11 model will start at 256GB, with 512GB and 1TB options available on higher tiers. European and UK pricing has leaked from Dealabs, a source with a strong track record on pre-order pricing. Based on these leaks, the base Pixel 11 could start around €999, with the Pro, Pro XL, and Pro Fold priced higher. US pricing has not leaked yet. Some outlets estimate the base Pixel 11 could land around $899, up from last year’s $799, but this is only an estimate at this stage. Google may not confirm final US pricing until closer to the event. Why prices might go up The tech industry is dealing with a global memory chip shortage. RAM and storage prices have climbed sharply over the past year, and companies like Samsung and Apple have already cited this shortage as a reason for higher prices on their devices. If Google follows the same pattern, a price increase on the Pixel 11 would not come as a surprise. Design and colours Google tends to redesign the Pixel every two to three years, and last year’s Pixel 10 was that redesign. This means the Pixel 11 is expected to bring smaller changes rather than a full overhaul. Leaked renders show a similar body shape to the Pixel 10, with slightly slimmer bezels and a thinner build. The camera bar is expected to switch to an all-glass, all-dark finish instead of the two-tone look used on the Pixel 10. One of the most talked-about rumoured features is something called “Pixel Glow.” This would be a small LED light on the back of the phone that lights up when the phone is face down, such as during an important call or notification. Code found in Android 17 points to this feature, but it is still unconfirmed whether it will appear on the base Pixel 11 or only the Pro models. Leaked colour options include: Pixel 11: Light Sterling, Midnight Haze, Fuchsia, and Moss Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL: Light Fog, Midnight Haze, Dune, and Pine Pixel 11 Pro Fold: Midnight Haze and Pine 1TB versions of any model: Midnight Haze only Specs to expect Everything below comes from leaks, not from Google directly. Chip: The Pixel 11 series is expected to run on Google’s new Tensor G6 chip, built using a 2nm process for the first time. This chip is also rumoured to include a new MediaTek modem, replacing the Samsung modem used in past models. This change alone could improve connectivity and battery life, since past Pixels have struggled with signal issues and battery drain. Battery: Leaks suggest the battery capacities may be smaller than those of the Pixel 10, which is unusual. Google is expected to rely on the new chip’s efficiency to compensate for smaller batteries, though it is too early to know how this will affect everyday use.
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Kelvin Obasuyi learned entrepreneurship by failing at almost everything first
Kelvin Obasuyi says his mother used to tell him that there is dignity in labour. It is a piece of advice that has guided him through years of work that rarely looked dignified from the outside: a chocolate popcorn business that folded within a year, selling varsity jackets, and freelance data analysis for anyone willing to pay. “I was [doing] anything I could do for money,” he says. Years later, as an entrepreneur, his mother’s words stopped being about his own survival and became about everyone else’s. “People [who] work for me are depending on the business to feed families,” he says. “That gave me a different idea about what entrepreneurship means to me.” Today, that idea runs through two companies. Obasuyi is the co-founder at 56 Capital, a finance firm lending to informal African businesses, and chief executive of Vector Innovations, a cross-border fintech company. None of it was mapped out when he had just graduated from the university. ChopChat and economies of scale In July 2013, Obasuyi graduated with an Economics degree from Covenant University, a private university in Ogun State, southwestern Nigeria. In November of the same year, Obasuyi began his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Nigeria’s mandatory one-year post-graduation programme. To make ends meet during the period, he launched his first business venture. “It was a very difficult time for me,” he says, “So, I wanted to make more money”. The venture he pursued was ChopChat, a chocolate-flavoured popcorn business. “This [venture] also made me love business,” he recalls. “We sold [ChopChat] stands at Iyana Ipaja Bus Stop [in Lagos], and we sold at some plazas.” Broke and living in Lagos with a group of friends, Obasuyi realised their combined savings could cover a popcorn machine and ingredients. The business, however, folded in 2014. “As demand grew, we simply weren’t equipped to produce 500 packs a day by hand from a single machine,” he reveals. “Our labour was a handful of friends who later took up jobs and could no longer help, and we had no access to finance to invest in bigger equipment or more hands”. In the same year, Obasuyi rounded up his NYSC, but was unable to get a job. “Even though I finished from Covenant University, a top school, it was still very difficult to land some jobs,” he says. “And I think I was also very picky [about] what I wanted to do” He says he wanted to land a banking job. When he could not get the roles, what followed, between 2014 and 2017, was a stretch of freelance work. He says he sold varsity jackets, marketed American career-guidance software to secondary schools, and ran data analytics jobs. Looking back, he says the period taught him the value of grit. Theory alone, he learned, does not survive contact with the real business world. It also sharpened his emotional intelligence: reading what people are not saying out loud to close a sale. “Vocal communication is less than a third of what’s actually being communicated,” he says. “The rest you have to read.” He also credits the stretch with teaching him how to keep moving without the structure of a salary, and how to keep evolving in tough terrain. “If you don’t, competition simply wipes you out,” he says. “Those are lessons the comfort of a bank job could never have given me.” Learning banking from the inside Obasuyi says in 2017, he joined Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank), one of Nigeria’s leading commercial banks, in a marketing role. He spent two years there. “[Working at GTBank] taught me grit,” he says. “People have this funny idea that when you go to a private school, you are a bit lily-livered, but GTBank exposed me to toughness”. He recalls joining the marketing team at the time when the bank’s goal was to capture the youth population. “We had ambitious targets given to us,” he recalls. “They didn’t mind what school you went to; you just had to get the job done.” He also recognises his time there as a period that taught him market segmentation— that not every market can be served the same way. “I realised that the banks couldn’t serve the unstructured financial markets, even though the unstructured financial markets are making a lot of money,” he says. It was at GTBank, watching customers get turned away for lacking formal financial records, that the seed of an idea began to form. In February 2018, while at GTBank, he says he recalls a woman who came in seeking a loan to fund her laundry business but lacked the formal documentation the bank required. She was turned down. “It was right to refuse because the bank was a structured organisation,” he says. That experience stayed with him and made him think about starting his own business that catered to unstructured businesses. But the idea would take years to take shape. First, there was more banking left to learn. Obasuyi says that in 2019, he joined Stanbic IBTC Bank, another commercial bank, as a business analyst. “Stanbic, being a global bank, strengthened my understanding of financial instruments, financial markets, and corporate businesses,” he says. At Stanbic, he also learned what it meant to work within a system that was “bureaucratic” for a reason. People would often complain about how long it took to get anything done, but he says he came to understand the delays were rooted in compliance, not rigidity for its own sake. “I learned how to guard operational systems, business systems, and systems thinking,” he adds. In 2020, Obasuyi left Stanbic IBTC to join First Bank of Nigeria, the country’s oldest bank, as a Product Manager. He was in charge of robotics process automation (RPA), which uses automation technologies to perform repetitive office tasks of human workers, such as extracting data, filling in forms, moving files, and more. “I learned what it means to do a corporate turnaround,” he recalls. “How do you convince an old, established bank that you can employ
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